STILL It UNNING TEE GAUNTLET ON THE IlIVEIt. 469 
clear of the Bakumu savages of the left bank, whose 
shouts ancl fierce yells came pealing to our ears, and 
were heard even above the roar and tremendous crash 
of the cataract. As I travelled round the island, many 
desperate ideas suggested themselves to me, and if I 
had been followed by a hundred practised and daring 
men it might have been possible to have dragged the 
canoes the length of the island past the first terrace of 
the cataract, and, after dashing across to Ntunduru 
Island, to have dragged them through its jungle and 
risked the falls by Asama Island ; but there were not 
thirty men in the entire Expedition capable of listening 
to orders and implicitly obeying instructions. 
To the east of Cheandoah the right branch was again 
forked by another island, and the whole face of the river 
was wild beyond description, and the din of its furious 
waves stunning ; while the western branch, such was its 
force, went rushing down a terrace, and then swept 
round in an extensive whirlpool with a central depres- 
sion quite eighteen inches below the outer rim. We 
pushed a rotten and condemned canoe above the fall, 
watched it shoot down like an arrow, and circle round 
that terrible whirling pool, and the next instant saw it 
drawn in by that dreadful suction, and presently ejected 
stern foremost 30 yards below. Close to the bank were 
nooks and basin-like formations in the trap rocks, in 
which every now and again the water became strongly 
agitated, and receding about twelve inches, would heave 
upwards with a rushing and gurgling that was awful. 
There was only one way to resolve the problem, and 
that w r as to meet the Bakumu and dare their worst, and 
then to drag the canoes through the dense forest on the 
left bank. Accordingly, we prepared for what we felt 
assured would be a stubborn contest. At early dawn of 
the 10th of January, with quick throbbing pulses, we 
stole up river for about a mile, and then with desperate 
haste dashed across to the shore, where we became im- 
mediately engaged. We floated down to the bend just 
above the cataract, and there secured our boats and 
canoes out of the influence of the stream. Leaving 
